Renga-ya, CHIJMES

Renga-Ya's a yakiniku joint (#01-11/12 Chijmes, 30 Victoria Street, tel : +65 6352 1966) that opened up a little over a year ago. These guys import wagyu from Kagoshima and Hokkaido in Japan along with some from Australia. There's pork from also Kagoshima and Iberian pigs from Spain along with lamb from New Zealand too. Basically the what's what of meats which you can put onto charcoal grill.

We had a ika yuzu jelly watercress salad to start. A clean slate of sweet citrus and vegetables to prime our palate for the meats to come. This was enjoyable actually. Possibly because of the yuzu jelly.

The first of the meats was cube cut wagyu of origins of non clear indication. Most of the bovine flesh and parts have their region of origin stated but this one just simply mentioned Japan. I'll go with Kagoshima. It was pretty good though. We fumbled a little due to the shape of the cut.

Pro tip against pro tips : don't believe in that "if you can easily remove the meat from the grill, that'll be the correct time to change sides/flip the meat" thing for this. By the time you can easily remove them from the grill, they'll be burnt. Check once in a while for these.

If you get the proper doneness, you'll be rewarded with a cube of meat clad in a nice grill aroma and a crusty exterior that will burst into an explosion of rendered fat once your teeth clamps down on them.

Their sliced gyutan was from Australian wagyu. Delicious stuff.

We ordered some Australian wagyu intestines just to see what they were like. Those intestines were covered in fat, sizzled and melted furiously before shrinking into little crumpled pieces. At that point, they tasted like deep fried intestines. Honestly, we were not sure if we got grilling these this right.

While we weren't actually surprised, we didn't see the lamb chops coming at us, expertly catching us unaware with how kickass delicious they were. Awesomely tender, properly grilled medium with respectable char and sufficiently flavourful with the requisite gaminess without being excessive. One of the better grilled lamb I've had for some time. 

The lamb came with some sesame buns that's served with some airy maple butter thingy. I could have mowed through more of those.

Seafood is definitely on their menu but it's not exactly what one should be shooting for at Renga-Ya. We had a go with the mentai king prawns which were succulent and crustacean-ily aromatic bolstered by torched mentai mayo.

And to end - a beef nininku chahan for carbs. I wouldn't recommend this. It was a regular garlic fried rice simply topped with some beef which was the worst of meats that were on our table tonight. A shocking departure in the form of chewy blandness compared to the wagyu and lamb earlier. 

There's a dessert called strawberry snow Hokkaido. That'll be ripe strawberries from Hokkaido, frozen and then thinly shaven, served with strawberry ice cream and condensed milk. Refreshing.

Man Man Japanese Unagi Restaurant, Duo Galleria

Man Man has a new shop down at Duo Galleria (#01-48, 7 Fraser Street) just an underground passage away from Bugis MRT. Those guys needed this since the queue for their original shop at Keong Saik shows no signs of abatement and that particular spot could really be a bitch to stand in line for when you don't make the first batch, especially when it starts to pour. It's either that or the scorching sun.

But this new shop didn't appear to be so crowded in the weekday. It was filled for sure but not to the brim. Maybe it's still new. I couldn't shake the feeling that the eels from their shira kaba hitsumabushi (that's a duo of their shirayaki and kabayaki eels, hitsumabushi styled) wasn't as tasty as the previous eats at their original shop which seemed to have more crisp on the surface of the eels and lighter flakier meat. I'm not sure if I'll be enthused with the idea of coming back.

Tiong Bahru Bak Chor Mee, Tiong Bahru Food Centre

We hit this stall (#02-77 Tiong Bahru Food Centre, 30 Seng Poh Road) seeing that it was one of those that was opened till the late evening. I've mixed feelings about this bowl. Let's start with what bothered me. I was getting a bit of that yellow noodle flavour from the mee pok. The texture of the noodles didn't quite have the bite that I was hoping for and in spite of them asking if I had wanted vinegar and me indicating so, the first mouthful left me wondering "what vinegar?".

But I didn't dislike it. It was an okay eat with decent slices of pork liver, minced pork and thin sliced lean pork. The flavour of that soup that they had on the side suggested it might have had dried scallops in the making.

Four cheese porcini pizza from PS Cafe Petit

This was actually a little disappointing coming from PS Cafe Petit (No.41,  78 Guan Chuan Street) because I wasn't getting the level of cheesiness that I had been expecting from their four cheese pie. Regretfully mild was the blue cheese and the extra raisins that I had asked for didn't seem like much after all. Pretty sure I missed the porcini as well. The one thing that made the pizza special was that toasted chilli sambal that came with it. Great for all that cornicione.

With a similar price tag like what one would find at Pizzeria Mozza, I did expect better. I'll still come back for another topping though.

Mentai butter egg udon from Tamoya Udon

Previously there was a mentai butter bowl which Tamoya Udon did at the United Square outlet. I recall that Liang Court then at that same time had a mentai mayo bowl. Now we have a mentai butter egg bowl. Which was as tasty as one would imagine with the onsen tamago and mentaiko along with the single ingredient that makes everything taste better.

Slavic day food at Beerfest

We had the distinct impression that it would be a sort of Slavic fair event with fun and games and tradition down at Beerfest (4 Rochester Park) - which is by the way an actual brewery/restaurant and not a beer festival as the name might have implied. In the end, it was just a one day event where they featured food from the region. 

The menu included earthy borscht, some cured fishes, dumplings and a tasty but pricey golubtsy which looked like an inside out poh piah. What was outstanding though, was their pork shashlik which featured tender and one of the juiciest grilled pork I've had. Juices that were squirting out as the knife went through the meat. Fragrant bits from the burnt ends. Wow. This pork shashlik made Shashlik look bad. Too bad it's a one off.

But beer seems pretty good and outrageously super value for the weekends. Drinks from $2 at 2pm anyone? Their cherry brew was a great flavour for the sweltering heat and there was also some fruity/yeasty kvass which I found myself enjoying.